self-inflicted

Yesterday I had a disagreement with a reader who took issue with my assertion that our self is tainted. There is nothing wrong with our self, she claimed, it’s the ego that edges God out. It’s a neat tautology all right, and a very popular one at that. It gives us something to do. We can be good spiritual citizens minding our ego, but it’s a fallacy of the mind. It’s duality at work.It’s our mind telling us what to do.

There are no enlightened people, there are only enlightened moments and everyone has them now and then. It’s the moment when the self slips away. In the stillness of meditation or satori moment while fully engaged with life. The precious moments that take our breath away and we are totally engrossed with life that we and life merge completely. There is no self in the creativity and magic of the here and now.

Look at a beautiful face and get lost in it. Work on a project that captures your entire being and watch your self dissolving in the creativity of the task at hand and all the connections at play. So what if we have to come back to the surface and breathe now and then. ‘Can I ask her on a date,’ we ask, or ‘will I get a promotion for a job well done.’ Our self always makes a comeback. We are human after all.

I am desire. I am the selfish gene, and millions of years of competition allow me to tell my story. They clearly have left a mark. When I look at the beauty’s face my subconscious calculates how our children will turn out. When I accept to work on the job, my social intelligence concludes that a job well-done will make my boss happy and I get more money next year. It’s alright. Why to beat our self up over being human?

Martin Buber once realized standing next to a horse, ‘I am thou.’ We are that. Desire and fear can melt in the creative moment when we get so lost in the beauty of our creation that we leave our desire to be promoted aside, at least for a short while. The self-inflicted pain of living can be transcended. That’s the spiritual revolution. We are more than our desires, fears and aversion. We are ‘I Am That I Am.’